Shadows Don’t Smile

But sometimes they make tea, clean up berry stains, and explain the matter of sentient, very emotional fruit to you.

Up in the attic, Orrin sat down at the tea table in the rounded window corner. His smile from earlier—from down in the shop—lingered.

To his left, a painting hissed in a language unspoken since centuries.

“So feisty…” Orrin chuckled, eyes trailing lazily towards the painting. With an elegant whisk of his hand, a paint brush appeared between his fingers. He glanced at his reflection in the mirror, unbothered by the angry voices around him.

Downstairs, Fenner yelled at a cupboard which refused to open.

“Silly boy.” Orrin laughed, and forced the cupboard open with a snap of his fingers, accompanied by Fenner’s surprised yelp.

“You’ve got to come to your senses!” An elderly man in a small painting above the chimney hissed. Orrin glanced at him.

“I am very much in control of all my senses, thank you very much.”

A mug of tea appeared in front of him, and Orrin let out a pleased hum. The window light caught on the bristles of the paint brush—red, but not quite the shade of any paint.

The frame to his right groaned, its canvas swelling slightly outward as if breathing.

“I already told you yesterday,” Orrin said mildly, without turning his head, “you can’t get out of there. You are the painting now. And you don’t need to breathe.”

Below, Fenner muttered something about furniture with opinions. Orrin sipped his tea as a broom handle thudded against the floor downstairs. With a snap of his fingers, the attic floor gave way as it had done last time, showing what was going on. And of course—as expected—it was Little Sir Menace, attacking the broom with his usual war strategy.

Fenner’s voice followed, muffled.

“Would you not! That’s the third time I’m telling you to leave the broom alone!” Orrin watched as Fenner picked the little clay knight up, cradled it against his chest, and carried it over to the kitchen counter.

Little Sir Menace kicked and jabbed at Fenner with his boots and lance, but his hollow sockets betrayed him—the little one liked the attention. Truly.

For a while, Orrin was content to watch these two in the kitchen: Fenner preparing breakfast as usual, and Little Sir Menace doing what he did best—being a menace.

Orrin smiled faintly.

“You could have had all that. A family. A familiar. Like any good witch.”

Orrin turned his head lazily to the painting that had spoken. It was Velvain, just like the last time he’d been up here in the attic.

Velvain, a tall, gaunt immortal frozen in a pose of faded glory, silver laurels on his brow and eyes narrowed in fury, always had something to say. That had been his problem.

“I’m not a witch. And yes, I can have all that. And I shall have it now. The way I see fit.” Orrin replied, sipping his tea as he watched Fenner and Little Sir Menace. The paint stretching across Velvain’s canvas peeled with his anger.

“That’s not true.”

It took a while until Orrin looked up at the painting. “I think you’re confusing possibility with permission,” Orrin said.

Velvain scoffed, a sound that rasped like sand against glass. “You can’t have that now. Here. On the path you chose. You don’t have a heart. You’re not capable of love anymore.”

Orrin didn’t answer right away. He brought the mug to his lips, blew once to cool it—though the tea had long since settled at the perfect temperature—and took a quiet sip.

Below, Fenner burnt the edge of the toast, muttered something sharp at the pan, and began slicing (the screaming) fruit with a knife far too large for the task. Little Sir Menace made no attempt to stop him. Instead, he was giggling at the way the fruits tried to escape the knife—failing, of course.

Velvain kept ranting and for a brief second, and Orrin wondered when the man would run out of the ability to do so.

“Orrin! Come to your senses! You’re nothing but a shadow wearing skin. Copying a smile it has seen somewhere. Left to serve the grounds of where others find themselves lost. What you are doing is not just. It is not within your chosen duty.”

“Shadows don’t smile,” Orrin simply murmured, taking another sip of his tea. “They peel off wallpapers, scurry after shiny things, they like blankets and cookies, some like flowers, they have the best stories to tell, and like to huddle around the fire place when there is snow outside. But they do not smile. They grin. I do not grin.”

Velvain didn’t reply, and the vision of Fenner and Little Sir Menace shimmered briefly before fizzling out.

“Keep your silence,” Orrin said finally, vanishing the brush in his hand. He’d come back here later. “Silence suits you, you know. You used it when it was essential to be loud. When it mattered for your own benefit. Now it at least suits your frame.” And with that, he left the attic, descended the stairs, and by the time he reached the floor beneath, the door to the attic was gone.

When Orrin reached the kitchen, the air smelled like burnt toast.

As always.

He walked in, smile easing out into something softer when he spotted Fenner by the counter, eyes narrowed at a cutting board that had slithered halfway across the counter to escape the fruit he was attempting to slice. Half the strawberries had already rolled to the far edge like they were considering a leap.

Little Sir Menace sat on the bread box, legs swinging, his tiny clay body shivering madly with giggles.

“Having fun, you two?” Orrin asked, chuckling slightly at the way Fenner turned to him very very slowly.

“Why,” Fenner began, holding up the comically large knife, “is the pear weeping?”

“I think it’s scared.” Orrin said, stepping fully into the room. “Wouldn’t you be scared if something much larger was trying to cut you apart?”

“Why would you phrase it like this?! I’m not doing anything bad! It’s a fruit!”

The pear, glossy and trembling, sat in a pile of half-chopped herbs. With a deep, desperate sigh, Fenner put the knife into the sink.

“I can’t do this anymore. Everything is alive. Everything is crying. And if it isn’t crying, it’s trying to kill me.” As he spoke, one of the strawberries shrieked and bounced off the counter. Little Sir Menace leapt off the bread box, and stabbed it mid-air. He held it up like a trophy, lance stuck dramatically into the fruit’s center.

“Good job!” Orrin praised, gently patting the little clay knight’s helmet. However, now there were splatters of strawberry juice all over him. Which… probably wasn’t good for the rough, unfinished clay work that he was.

“But I think now we got a problem, don’t we?” Orrin snapped his fingers, letting a slightly damp cloth appear. “Hold still.”

Carefully, Orrin wiped at the strawberry splatters but there was a faint discoloration left. He rubbed a little stronger, but the little clay knight shivered, trying to get away, visibly uncomfortable by having a finger press that deep into his clay.

“Oh my. I’m sorry, Little Sir Menace. Well… I suppose… if we can’t clean you properly, it’s time for a new set of clothes for you—well, armor, I mean. How about that?”

Little Sir Menace’s head tilted upward. He looked between Orrin’s face and the smear of red across his chest, then gave a solemn nod.

“Good,” Orrin said softly. “You’ve earned it, little one.”

Little Sir Menace beamed, his hollow sockets going wider than Orrin would have thought possible.

“I still haven’t earned a kitchen that isn’t alive,” Fenner muttered a few steps away from them. “Can we enchant the fruit to be… less? Like. You know. Just less. Emotionally. Verbally. Less expression. Less alive.”

Orrin chuckled. “You’re alive, too, aren’t you? And so is Little Sir Menace. And Lord Stranglewood. And the shop.”

Fenner stared at him; blankly. “Yeah. No shit. And I think that’s the 99 problems we got here—everything is alive.”

“The pears only cry during slicing,” Orrin offered, placing the cloth aside. “They’re quite polite otherwise.”

Fenner groaned. “Not the point. Like. You’re missing it by a mile.”

Little Sir Menace climbed onto the counter, poking at his armor with one tiny fist as if expecting it to peel off like dried glue. When it didn’t, he plopped into a sitting position, defeated. Orrin bent slightly to meet him at eye level.

“Now, now. A little patience, mh? You can’t just tear your skin off. We’ll cover it with something that has more finish. Perhaps even a glaze. We can’t have your clay soaking up berry juice. That’s quite a shame for a spectacular little knight like yourself.”

The knight huffed, small arms folding across his chest. Fenner raised an eyebrow.

“Do you have miniature armor lying around just like that? Let me guess, you first have to hunt it and drown it in fire because otherwise it’ll sing an opera about his heroic little fuck-ups all night?”

Orrin let out a laugh. “Goodness, Fenner.” He wiped at his eyes. “No such thing, no. I will have to make him one.”

Fenner frowned. “You can craft clay things?” He gave Little Sir Menace—who was now nibbling on the strawberry—a long look. “If so, why didn’t you fix him up? Remove all those fingerprints and the cracks?”

Orrin turned his gaze to Little Sir Menace, who was now two-thirds through the strawberry, berry juice smeared across one clay cheek like war paint.

“I could,” Orrin said slowly. Fenner leaned against the counter. “Then why don’t you?”

Little Sir Menace paused mid-bite. Orrin gently turned him around, brushing a thumb over the patch of clay where the knight’s left shoulder had long since flaked.

“Because he’s not broken,” Orrin said. “He’s unfinished.”

Fenner tilted his head. “Sounds like the same thing to me.”

Orrin didn’t look up. “It’s not.”

Little Sir Menace chewed more slowly, as though considering the words he likely didn’t understand.

Fenner exhaled through his nose. “You talk about him like he’s a person.” Orrin raised an eyebrow, finally glancing his way. “He is.”

Fenner didn’t reply.

The cupboards made a polite clicking noise as Orrin rummaged around in it.

A moment later, he handed Little Sir Menace a scrap of fabric and a piece of wire, which the little knight accepted like sacred gifts. He promptly fell off the counter in the attempt to carry both at once and Fenner dove forward to catch him, hitting the tiles. Orrin chuckled.

“See. You see him as little person, too. Otherwise you wouldn’t have caught him to save him from the fall.”

Fenner only glared at him. Little Sir Menace, however, toddled out of Fenner’s hands, found his balance on the slippery tiles, and dragged the wire behind him like a lance twice his size. The cloth lay around his shoulders like a little cloak—similar to the way Orrin’s looked.

“He’s very determined,” Orrin said with a faint smile.

“He’s chaos in boots,” Fenner muttered, but there was no bite in it this time. “That he is.” The shopkeeper agreed. “Anyway.” He said, with a slightly more serious tone. “I’d need you to fetch me some things so that I can craft Little Sir Menace a new armour. Don’t worry,” he said quickly when Fenner’s face paled. “I’m not sending you to the store where we got the groceries. Just a smaller store. Much smaller.”

Behind them, Little Sir Menace raised his berry-stained arms in a silent cheer. Orrin glanced over his shoulder, his smile softening even more.

“See. He likes that thought.”

Fenner sat up, rubbing his elbow where he hit the kitchen tile. “Smaller how?” he asked warily, ignoring the little clay knight toddling around in circles.

Orrin tilted his head. “It’s more of a cupboard, really. Bit dramatic. Sells odds, ends, enchanted thread, two kinds of glue that refuse to speak to each other, and a rather anxious mess of trinkets.”

Fenner narrowed his eyes. “Does the cupboard scream?”

“Only when startled.”

“Fantastic. Do I need to bring payment?” Fenner muttered. “Or does this cupboard want something cursed and metaphorical, like a drop of my blood, a tear cried in pain, or a childhood memory I cherish?”

Orrin laughed again. “No such thing, silly boy. Just say I’m sending you.”

Fenner groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “You know, I used to buy things at a normal shop. A regular, quiet shop. Where the worst thing that ever happened was old, jittery Kathy trying to pay with her change instead of her bank card.”

Orrin fumbled with the pockets of his cloak that had appeared around his shoulders quietly. He handed Fenner a small paper note. “There you go. Everything I need is written down here. You don’t need to worry about anything. Just enjoy the experience.”

Little Sir Menace clinked to a stop beside Fenner’s boot, then raised his arm and saluted him with two berry-stained fingers.

Fenner sighed. “I hate this job.” He glanced at the paper. “And where do I go now? It doesn’t say.”

Orrin nodded, and reached out to pull Fenner up from the floor. “Close your eyes. Take a deep breath.” He said, smiling. “And don’t scream.”

“Why would I—“

Before Fenner could ask, a shadow peeled off the wall and devoured him whole. Faintly, between dimensions, Orrin heard a high-pitched, curse-like scream. Shaking his head, he crouched down to pick up Little Sir Menace.

“Told him, didn’t I? No screaming.” He carefully wiped at a berry-red smudge on Little Sir Menace’s shoulder, and the little knight trembled with another giggle.

“Silly boy, isn’t he? But that’s why we love Fenner, right?”

Little Sir Menace nodded. He loved Fenner. And he loved Orrin, too.

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